Unions and the Inter-establishment Adoption of New Microelectronic Technologies in the British Private Manufacturing Sector.

This paper uses the 1984 Workplace Industrial Relations Survey to consider the impact of union presence upon the interestablishment adoption of new microelectronic process technologies. A positive, well-determined and robust relationship between union recognition and adoption is evident. This appears to refute both union resistance and technological rent-seeking hypotheses, which posit the opposite association. It is tentatively suggested that this result reflects a propensity toward early adoption, rather than simply adoption per se. Attempts to isolate the factors giving rise to this result cast some doubt on simplistic substitution conjectures. Copyright 1992 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd